I am hoping someone who has been to NZ before can let me know if this is a good itinerary or not - mostly in terms of time spent in each place, and if we should be doing any other detours. I am OK with driving on the "wrong" side of the road.
We'll be there for ~16 days total after subtracting travel time.
Nov 8 - Arrive Auckland
Nov 8-11: Auckland area
Nov 11-13 Cathedral Cove area
Nov 13-16 Rotorua - seems like there's a lot to do here.
Nov 16-17 Napier (to break up the drive and apparently wine tours)
Nov 17-19 Wellington area
(Fly to Queenstown)
Nov 19-22 Queenstown / Milford Sound
Nov 23 Fly back to Auckland to go home
Wasn't sure if Coromandel / Abel Tasman are worth the long detours, we were looking into that.
I REALLY wanted to do Great White Shark cage dive but it was apparently was banned in September 2018. From what I can tell they might still be doing it at a different location, but I don't think it starts until December so we might not be able to do that. Any clarification there would also be appreciated, the tour company websites are ambiguous about this.
If there's anything you think we missed, or we should swap out for something else, or spend more/less time somewhere that would be great information. TIA.